Automatic monitoring¶
Probes in your fridges that read every minute and email you when one drifts, including at three in the morning.
Where: menu → Food Safety → Temperature. That page is only for sensors. Without a hub it says what they would do, with Find out more, and has the two steps to set one up when it arrives. Checking by hand is a form: see Fridge temperatures.
What it is¶
One small hub for the shop and one sensor per unit. Nothing to wire in. The sensors read every minute, and the screen shows each one's latest reading and its history.
It does not replace the walk-around, it replaces the writing down. You still open the fridge, you still look at the food. What stops is one person carrying a clipboard round eight units three times a day, and the gap in the book on the day nobody had time.
Getting it is a conversation, not a switch. Find out more opens the full explanation, with Talk to us about adding it at the bottom.
Setting it up¶
We send you the kit: one hub for the shop, and a sensor for each fridge, already paired with the hub. Then:
| Step | What to do | What should happen |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tap Set up my hub on the Automatic checks card. | Set up your temperature hub opens. |
| 2 | Plug the hub into power, and into your router with the network cable. | |
| 3 | Type the code from the sticker on the hub and tap Connect. | Connecting your hub. This usually takes a minute or two, and you can leave the page and come back. |
| 4 | Wait. | Hub connected with a green tick. Your sensors show up under New sensors a few minutes later. |
| 5 | Check the email under Nobody gets alerts yet and tap Send alerts here. | The card goes away. Until you do this, nobody gets any of the emails under Alerts. |
| 6 | Tap Add on each new sensor and pick where it is under Which fridge or freezer is it in? Not in the list yet? Pick Add a new one, choose Fridge or Freezer, and type its name. | It shows the safe range. Tap Add sensor and it moves into the main list with its reading. |
A new sensor is not checked against anything until you add it: it is a number with no fridge attached to it. A fridge or freezer you add here with Add a new one also goes into your list under units, so it is there for checks by hand too. Every sensor has to be in a fridge or freezer.
A sensor added before that may say This sensor is not in a fridge or freezer yet when you open it and tap the pencil. Pick its fridge or freezer, or Add a new one, and save.
Adding a second hub, or replacing one: Add another hub at the bottom of the screen.
Pairing a new sensor or a signal extender: tap the hub card, then Pair sensors. It opens the hub's own page in your browser. This only works on a phone or computer on the shop's Wi-Fi, not from home or on mobile data, and only while the hub is online. The card also shows the hub's Local address, which we may ask for on the phone.
The dashboard¶
Needs a look. When something is wrong, a card at the very top lists it, worst first: a hub that is offline, a fridge or freezer too warm or too cold, a sensor not heard from, or a low battery. Tap a line to open that sensor. When all is well the card is not there.
The hub. A card for each hub, under that. Normally it shows Online and when it last checked in, about once a minute. If the hub has not checked in for 10 minutes, the card turns red: Offline since 2:14 pm. Fridges and freezers are not being watched. Tap it for what to check: that the power is on (if not, keep fridge and freezer doors shut), the hub is plugged in with its light on, and the internet is working.
After an outage the card says how long the hub was off and the most likely reason, for example Off for 3 hours 17 minutes on Thu 12 Nov, most likely a power cut. That shows on the card for a week, then only when you tap it. Tap the card also to see who gets alerts (Change to edit), the hub code, and Technical details if we ask for them on the phone.
Each sensor. A card per sensor, in name order, with its latest reading, whether it is in range, its signal (Good, OK or Weak), its battery and Last heard 5 minutes ago. Those last three explain most sensors that stop reporting. Tap a sensor for its history: a chart you can zoom, and a table of Time, Temp and Battery.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Amber card, Old reading, Not heard from since 1:10 pm | The hub has not heard from this sensor for 3 hours. The number shown is the last one it heard, and may be old. | Check the sensor has a battery, is still in its fridge, and that any signal extender is plugged in. |
| Grey card, Not being watched | The hub is offline, so nothing is reading this fridge. | Get the hub back on (see above). |
| Battery in red | 20% or under. We have emailed you. It stays red until it reads over 35%. | Change the battery. |
| Battery in amber | Under 50%. | Change it on the same visit as a red one. |
Signal helps when you are placing sensors and signal extenders. A Weak signal on its own is fine as long as readings keep arriving, and the number jumps around between readings. It only matters when a sensor stops being heard from: then the sensor's page says Signal was weak. A signal extender near it may help. A sensor that goes through a signal extender shows the extender's signal, not its own.
Sensor check under the sensor list shows every sensor with when it was last heard, its signal and its battery, the ones that need a look first. Use it when the sensors are first put in, or when one keeps going quiet.
Batteries under the sensor list shows every sensor's battery, lowest first, so one visit with a pack of batteries does them all. It says how many are low when any are.
Your daily record¶
Each morning, before you open, your sensors file yesterday's record for you. It is in Reports and Send records like any other check, under Fridge temperatures (automatic), signed Temperature sensors. Nobody has to do anything.
One row per fridge:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Settled temperature | The middle reading from the steadiest 2 hours of the day, when the fridge was left alone. This is what it holds when nobody is opening it. |
| Steadiest time | When those 2 hours were, for example 1:10am to 3:10am. |
| Safe range | That fridge's Min and Max. |
| Longest time out of range | The longest stretch outside the range that day, and how far it went. |
| Appears switched off | When the fridge seemed to be off as usual, for example 3:50pm to midnight, as on other Saturdays. Empty most days. |
| Working properly | Yes when the settled temperature is in range and the fridge was never out of range for more than 4 hours. |
Doors, deliveries and defrosting are not held against you. A fridge goes up when the door is open, when a big delivery goes in, or when a freezer defrosts itself, and then comes back down. That is a normal day. You do not need to tell the app when you are closed or when deliveries come: it finds the steady time by itself. A rise shows in Longest time out of range, but a fridge is only marked No when it never settles in its range, or stays out of range for more than 4 hours.
A fridge you switch off on purpose is not held against you either, once it is a habit. If a cabinet goes off for the weekend or every night, and it did the same at those hours on at least 2 of the last 4 same days of the week (or on 4 of the last 7 days), and came back cold each time, that time shows under Appears switched off and is not judged. A day it is off from start to finish reads All day, as on other Sundays.
The first time you switch one off, or the first time after a change like a public holiday, it is a No: from the readings alone that looks exactly like a fridge that has stopped working. Write a note on the record to say it was switched off. After two weeks of the same habit, the record learns it.
A No shows as needing a look in Reports, the same as a failed check, so you can write down what you did about it. A sensor with no readings all day is also a No: check the hub is plugged in.
Alerts¶
An alert is an email. There is no SMS and no push.
A reading out of range does not alert you straight away. It has to stay out of range for a few minutes first — five, unless it has been set otherwise for your shop. Opening a walk-in to put a delivery away, or a defrost cycle, sends the temperature up and back down again, and an alert for that would be an alert you learn to ignore.
| What you get | When |
|---|---|
| [ALERT] Walk-in chiller - Temperature ... | A unit has been out of range for longer than the delay |
| Temperature monitor offline | The hub has not checked in for 10 minutes |
| Sensor not reporting | The hub has not heard from a sensor for 3 hours |
| Sensor battery low | A sensor battery is at 20% or under |
| Nothing | It went out of range and came back before the delay was up |
You also get an email when it comes back, so a 2am alert has a 3am answer waiting rather than a morning of wondering. When the hub is back, that email says how long it was off and whether it was most likely a power cut or the internet.
All of these go to the addresses under Who gets alerts on the hub card. With no address there, nobody gets any of them.
An alert is Active until somebody marks it Acknowledged, and Resolved when it is over, with a reason: Temperature Restored, Unit Repaired, Unit Replaced, Sensor Replaced, False Alarm or Other.
Good to know¶
- The ranges are yours. A sensor uses its fridge's Min and Max from units. Change the fridge there and the sensor follows.
- Every reading is kept for 90 days on the sensor's own screen. The daily record above is what is kept for 4 years.
- To get every reading as a spreadsheet, open the sensor and tap the download button at the top. Pick the dates, then Download. You get a zip with one row per reading (time, temperature, whether it was in range, and battery) and a short note on what each column means. It works one fridge at a time, and 90 days can take a minute.
- You can still take a manual check at any time. The two live side by side, and a probe reading you took yourself is worth having when you are arguing with a sensor.
- This is the half of Food Safety that needs hardware. Everything else in the section works on a phone with nothing fitted.